AFM: Now Playing at the China Film Pavilion – A Tale of Revival and Global Ambitions

Mathew Scott
·5 min read

China has brought the figures, and it has brought the films to this year’s AFM as the country pushes the positive narrative of an industry in recovery from the woes of the past few years thanks to diverse content and a post-pandemic audience hungry for entertainment.

All told, there have been 40 Chinese film companies involved and more than 100 Chinese films showcased at AFM’s China Film Pavilion, providing an insight into an industry that has over the past few months inched its way ever closer to the record box office figures that were being enjoyed back in 2019.

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The box office report released last week by film and cinema industry watchers Artisan Gateway for the Oct. 20-22 weekend showed revenue of just below $40 million, which was 11.9 percent down compared with the same period in 2019, but up 76.5 percent from the same weekend in 2022.

On top for the weekend was the slow-burn “China noir” Only the River Flows from Cannes favorite Wei Shujun, a low-budget thriller about a confused cop who’s battling to solve a series of murders, drawing a healthy $12.6 million on debut, reflecting the fact that the China box office isn’t always about historical epics and sci-fi blockbusters.

The China Film Pavilion has been pushing that point home as it seeks to both sell its films to the international distribution market and look for international partners for making movies going forward.

“We hope to promote the latest performance of Chinese films, introduce more excellent film companies and quality domestic films to the international market, and establish a platform for international exchange and cooperation through the pavilion, so as to make more countries understand Chinese films and learn more about China through those films,” was the official word from a pavilion representative.

Among the companies represented at the pavilion are China Film Co. Ltd., Huaxia Film Distribution Co. Ltd., Tianshan Film Studio, Bona Film Group, CMC Pictures, Beijing Film Academy, the China Film Archive, and the Beijing and Shanghai international film festivals.

To help push the notion of international collaborations being back in business the pavilion has also hosted a seminar that gave international filmmakers a platform to share their China co-production experiences. The event, dubbed “International Co-Production With China: Navigating Filmmaking Without Boundaries,” was held on Nov. 1 and heard from the likes of Randy Greenberg, executive producer of The Meg 2: The Trench.

That film brought together Warner Bros. and the Shanghai-based CMC Pictures and Gravity Pictures for a tale of monstrous prehistoric fish causing all sorts of mayhem, which pulled in more than $116.5 million from China.

Greenberg was among those to “address practical issues involving international film co-productions in various countries, including China, e.g., tax/rebates and production incentives, speeding up the approval process, currency conversion, international crew vs. local talent development, infrastructure and local tech support, and international management standards of physical production, including distribution.”

Figures shared by pavilion organizers to push the mantra of “the strong recovery momentum of the Chinese film industry” showed RMB 6.758 billion ($924 million) collected over the 2023 Spring Festival period in late January. Reps claimed that this was the second-highest total on record.

Meanwhile, “the box office of the summer season hit RMB 20.619 billion [$2.8 billion], receiving 505 million cinema-goers with 34.61 million screenings and setting a new record for the Chinese film market in all three indicators,” according to a statement from the China Film Co-production Corporation (CFCC) that set up the pavilion under the guidance of the China Film Administration.

Many of the films that helped drive those figures have been showcased at the pavilion this week. While the likes of Wandering Earth II, Hidden Blade, and Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms had the sci-fi, historical epic and fantasy genres covered, the likes of the phone-scam drama No More Bets and Never Say Never, about an ex-fighters teaching mixed martial arts to orphans, expanded the reach of box office successes.

Other genres represented included rural drama Fade Away Pastoral and animated movies 30,000 Miles From Chang’an and Boonie Bears: Guardian Code, a genre that the Chinese film industry continues to expand amid growing popularity among audiences. 30,000 Miles From Chang’an, about poets from the Tang dynasty (618-907) era, collected an estimated $249 million, while the latest installment in the Boonie Bears franchise reached more than $200 million. International animation has also continued to prove a hit with Chinese audiences, as seen in the performances of the Japanese anime features Suzume ($110 million) and The First Slam Dunk ($90 million).

Represented at the China Film Pavilion were production companies, copyright agencies, distribution companies, film festival organizations, film industry associations, film academies, and cinema chains. “These film institutions going abroad for the event not only reflects the desire of Chinese film companies to ‘go global,’ but also justifies the trend of inseparable cooperation between the Chinese film industry and the global market,” was pavilion organizers’ take.

Representatives of Chinese exhibitors said that “through overseas promotion of Chinese films, [the] dialogues and exchanges with foreign filmmakers have become more diverse and effective.” And they said: “In the past few days, we found that our overseas counterparts were very eager to work with Chinese filmmakers and film companies. We hope to gain more achievements in the film market.”

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